The present invention relates generally to implementing service functions over a network, and more particularly to a call waiting service implemented over a telephone network which allows a user, such as an Internet user, to receive incoming call information from a third party without interrupting an active connection between the user and a second party.
Currently, telephone users have the option of subscribing to a call waiting service through their local telephone company. When a third party attempts to contact a telephone user that is actively connected to a second party, this service provides a tone signal to the user notifying her of the incoming call. The user may ignore the tone signal or switch over to the incoming call. Although the user is notified of an incoming call immediately, current call waiting services are highly intrusive and unreasonably disruptive to the telephone user. If the user ignores the tone signal, the missed caller remains unknown. Certain phone systems allow a user to input a specific code to automatically dial the telephone number of the person making the last incoming call attempt. This feature, however, is useless if more than one person attempted to call the user during their telephone conversation with the second party.
With the emergence of the Internet, more people are relying on a single dial-up telephone line to make voice calls and access the Internet. These users currently have a choice of either disabling call waiting on the Internet access line and potentially missing incoming calls or leaving the call waiting service active and taking a risk that the Internet session will be abruptly terminated by an incoming call. Certainly, many telephone and Internet users would find these results unacceptable.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a call waiting system for telephone users who do not want to miss incoming calls and at the same time do not like to be interrupted with new calls during a telephone conversation with another person.
In addition, it is desirable to provide a call waiting system that allows Internet users to have an uninterrupted Internet session and at the same time not miss incoming calls.
Additional objectives, features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the written description and appended claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.